Daddy Make Me Beg

Chapter 3

“Probably,” he said without inflection. “We had an opossum once. Could be him again.”

“Um, that’s…cool.” I shuddered, imagining an angry opossum plummeting through the ceiling tile directly onto my face while I was sitting on a toilet. Though I guess there were ways I could sink lower in life.

He scribbled a number in a box, his attention still glued to the page.

I set my cold brew and chip bag on the counter, and at last, his gaze flicked up—then caught, holding on me. He skimmed my messy hair that I’d had in the same bun for days, my travel-stained sweatshirt, and the sad half slouch of my entire body.

“You look like you’re on the verge of a full mental collapse,” he said casually. Like this was his version of “how can I help you?”

“Excuse me?” Strangers didn’t usually judge me out loud, and I was fairly certain I didn’t like it when they did.

He shrugged, ringing up my items. “If I had to bet whether you were running away from something or just slowly crumbling under the weight of existence…I’d go with both.”

I stared at him.

He stared back.

The register beeped weakly, as if it were embarrassed to be in the vicinity of this conversation.

“That’ll be six ninety-eight,” he added.

I fished a ten out of my pocket and handed it over. “You really know how to charm the customers.”

He gave me back my change with another shrug. “I call it how I see it.”

“Have you considered being slightly less hostile toward the paying public?”

“Have you considered getting more sleep and less caffeine?”

“I’ll take that as a no,” I muttered, wondering what he would do if I threw the sriracha chips at him.

He wasn’t wrong, though. I’d barely slept for days. Weeks, months…years.

I turned toward the door, cradling my snacks like they were the only things holding me together.

“Hey,” he called after me, and against my better judgment, I stopped.

He didn’t smile. He just offered, “It gets better. Or it gets weirder. Either way, you keep going. Right?”

He dipped his head, a small, worn-out nod that felt like his version of a lifeline, one you only give when you know what it’s like not to have one.

“Right,” I managed, swallowing around the ache in my throat. “That’s good advice.”

I pushed out the door, blinking against the late afternoon light. The air smelled of sun-warmed asphalt and gasoline, and for a moment I simply stood there, keys in one hand, can and chips in the other, letting myself breathe.

Then I opened the door to my Prius, slid behind the wheel, and merged back onto the empty road…as if I weren’t steadily fraying at every edge I had left.

As if I still remembered how to want a life on the other side of this.

As if some part of me hadn’t stayed behind that night.

The silence hit harder than I expected.

The sky was turning the color of old bruises. Purple and yellow and a kind of sickly green, like it couldn’t decide what mood it was in. I could empathize with that feeling.

I cracked open the cold brew with trembling hands and took a sip. It tasted bitter, almost rancid, but at least it had caffeine in it.

I’d drive for two more hours before stopping for the night, and I’d spend those two hours convincing myself I was heading toward something I could build into a better life…instead of just falling further apart.

Turned out I was perfectly willing to lie to myself, because those two hours had ended…well, six hours back.

Somewhere in between, I’d taken another detour I absolutely shouldn’t have taken. A handwritten sign on the side of the highway had promised WORLD’S MOST ACCURATE PSYCHIC. EXIT 211. NO REFUNDS. I’d swung onto that exit before my brain had even caught up with my hands on the wheel. Apparently when your life is imploding, all it takes is a glittery Sharpie on cardboard for you to go full existential scavenger hunt.

The “psychic” was a middle-aged woman in a folding chair behind a roadside tent. She was wearing a Dallas Cowboys hoodie and asked if I’d brought exact change before launching into a monologue about how my aura looked like a haunted bag of Funyuns.

I told her it was more like sriracha fire…but she didn’t laugh. Instead, she leaned back slowly, like she’d just realized my problems were way above her pay grade, then offered me a grilled cheese from her cooler.

I’d turned her down, a decision I now regretted with my whole soul, because night had fallen, rain was coming down in sheets, and my stomach wasn’t just growling. It was openly considering rebellion.

The road had turned into a winding mountain pass about twenty minutes ago, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t blinked since.

Everything outside my windshield was black…ink-black, soul-black, a black that made you feel like maybe the world stopped existing past your headlights. Rain slapped the glass so hard I had to turn the wipers up to full panic mode, which mostly just smeared the water in newer, more creative directions.

Fog curled around the edges of the road like it was trying to get inside the car, and I gripped the wheel tighter.

My visibility…maybe four feet. My control…rapidly approaching zero.

I was crawling fifteen in a fifty-five, clinging to the white line on the right side of the road. That thin reflective strip? It was the last available lifeboat on the Titanic. My one and only ride-or-die.

I whispered to it like a prayer. “Just you and me, buddy. We’re gonna make it.”

A car behind me honked, long and aggressive, and I flinched, checking the rearview.

Headlights blazed in, riding way too close. Another honk followed, clearly translating to get the hell out of the way. But there was nowhere to go. I had a rock wall on one side and an open void on the other.

What did they want me to do? Pick the best way to die?

I didn’t cry, even though every part of me wanted to. Instead I sucked the tears in so hard I was pretty sure they went straight into my lungs, and I focused harder on the white line. Inch by inch, I continued to creep forward. The tires gave a squeal on the next curve, and my body leaned with it…like I was riding a bike instead of driving a Prius that was practically the size of a soda can.

The car behind me finally swerved wide and blew past, vanishing into the mist like they had both a death wish and excellent insurance coverage.

I didn’t follow.

I couldn’t.

It felt like if I so much as blinked the wrong way…if I took one breath too deep…I’d slip right off the edge and disappear into a glorious crash below.

And maybe that was exactly what someone like me deserved.

The rain got worse.

Which didn’t seem physically possible until it was happening…like the sky had been holding back out of politeness and then suddenly decided, You know what, she looks like she could use some more character development.

The white line disappeared.

So did the road.

So did everything.

I slowed to a crawl, one hand clenched so tight around the wheel my knuckles looked like skinless bones. My headlights hit nothing but water and fog and what might’ve been the edge of existence.

“Nope,” I whispered. “No thank you. I refuse to die on a Wednesday. A Friday maybe, but definitely not a Wednesday.”

The universe, apparently amused but not cruel enough to follow through, blinked first.

A green exit sign bled through the mist like a minor miracle, glowing faint and unreal. I didn’t catch the number or a city name, and I didn’t pause to question it. I just yanked the wheel like my life depended on it, because I was suddenly very sure it did.

The exit curved hard, and I hit it too fast. The back tires fishtailed, my soul ejecting straight to the roof with a very clear girl, really? before the car caught traction again.

I coasted down the ramp in near-zero visibility. The storm wasn’t letting up. If anything, it was getting louder. Angrier. Thunder cracked overhead like the sky had hurled something at the wall and missed.

The road at the bottom of the exit was darker than the highway. Just two faded lanes swallowed by trees on either side. My GPS had stopped talking to me around the same time I’d left the World’s Saddest Psychic, so I had no idea where I was.

But I didn’t care. I just needed to find a place to pull over and stop feeling like Mother Nature had decided I was the nightly special.

So I drove forward, following nothing but instinct and fear and the occasional flicker of a roadside reflector like some medieval peasant following a ghost light into the woods.

The rain kept falling. The trees got thicker.

And the name Blackwood flickered past on a rusted sign I almost missed entirely.

T he storm was crawling down the mountain.

I could feel it in my teeth.

Out here, you didn’t need Doppler radar to know the weather was turning. You just had to pay attention. The cows grew restless. The dogs went quiet. And the air thickened with a silence that made your skin itch.

It was beautiful, though.